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Showing posts with the label Eastern American toad

Another Publishing Triumph 4.23

 This is the last poem of mine, I believe, that will be published this year. Foreshadow, the publisher of this one, is presenting another poem next year some time.  This one is kinda-sorta a poem. I tried to write it in a modified blank verse, but it just wasn't working that way. This is how it turned out. https://www.foreshadowmagazine.com/magazine/untitled2866983

Babies

     Having children has to be one of life's top three pleasures (also one of life's top five annoyances).  Guiding them as they grow, watching how they navigate the wonder found in the world is a slow-burn of joy.      In addition to one's own children, joy is found in the babies of creatures we share the world with.  If one can combine animal babies with one's own, one may have stumbled upon an alternative energy source that cannot be usurped by corporations.      My children and I have watched infant praying mantids leave the relative safety of their egg case and venture into a world of danger, and for a fortunate few, maturation.  We've set a luna moth free that we observed from caterpillar to cocoon to adult.      Most recently, we've watched Eastern American toad tadpoles ( Bufo americanus americanus ) metamorphose into tiny toadlets. At the toad "delivery room" It's hard to believe these tiny...